MUHLENBERG COUNTY, Ky. (5/30/14) — The Muhlenberg County Fiscal Court approved a 2 percent pay raise for all county workers Thursday night on an unanimous vote.

The next item on the agenda was the county budget. The county's $21 million budget was approved unanimously on first reading by the court.

In regard to the budget, Judge-Executive Rick Newman said that spending needs to be tightened as most of the current capital projects in the county are nearly complete. The budget now goes to Frankfort for review before being sent back to the county for a second reading.

The third agenda item was electrical inspectors.

Newman said Muhlenberg County is considered a “closed county” in terms of electrical inspectors. This means that inspectors must come from those that live within the county. The problem is that not every inspector from Muhlenberg can perform all inspection requirements within the county. As a result, when the position opened, no one applied, said Newman.

Muhlenberg currently has two people that can do inspections but only one of them can inspect commercial. Problems arise for businesses if an electrical inspection is delayed due to the lack of an inspector, he said.

Newman wants to open the job to inspectors from other counties. However, the discussion turned on the question that if inspectors from outside the county were used, would it still be a “closed county”? Or, would it be considered an open county? The entire court agreed that the county needs more inspectors but tabled the item until the next meeting for further study.

The last agenda item was the county road budget. The board approved $1.7 million for the budget mostly for blacktop and gravel and other items pertaining to road maintenance. This motion was approved unanimously by the court.

The court discussed some non-actionable items including the fact that TVA will hold a meeting this Tuesday to discuss its new gas plant.

The court also mentioned that there may be a new coal mine opening in the area this fall.